Well and Won

The garden folded, and I finally stopped seeing it as losing.

The front porch, on an August morning in South Carolina, feels like a soup pot. There is no hint of coolness. Instead, it is eighty degrees before 7 am. A haze of moisture squats on my farm, taking advantage of the night, soaking in. The sun will rise and burn it off a bit, but in the meantime, we all simmer in it.

A fall morning finds me wrapped in a wool blanket with my journal at daybreak, thick socks and slippers, turning inward for the warmth that’s there. But August? Thin boxer shorts, an old threadbare Janis Joplin tee shirt, sweat dripping down my bare back beneath it and a gleaming sheen to my tanned thighs. Nothing inward, all external in the soup.

August is the month the garden gets away from me. She’s gone so wild in her determination to turn out seeds and a tomorrow that I bless her to do it. She lays her cards, gracefully, an expert poker player that knows her hand. I used to think she was folding. I couldn’t see the cards were facing the sky but now I know better. She’s already cleaned up, gone flush, filled the house.

I used to fight it, eke out what else I could but now I watch her rot and bend and break. It does not make me grieve anymore. If she handed me another hundred pounds of tomatoes, I’d probably cuss her. Instead, I am languid even in the morning, and it’s too hot to even knit with wool.

In August, we play. We go to the creek or the lake. Find a body of water to put our bodies in. Drive to the beach for the day, which is cooler than our inland farm. All the work of the summer comes to a slow. School will start soon, I saw the busses for the public school on the road this week, filled with faces looking out into the heat. But I won’t call my children to class at my table just yet. No, give me August for a few more soupy slow mornings, and for afternoons in swimsuits with popsicles and nothing else better to do.

Sure, there are some gardening tasks that will have to be addressed. Start more seeds for the fall, carry compost to the high tunnel and ruthlessly rip away what remains there. I love to do these jobs in February. Then, it feels just like those perennial green spikes breaking through the soil in the cottage garden, all eagerness and hope. Then, the effort of beginning again is the sprint at the starting line my waiting winter muscles have been begging for. But in August? I do these tasks under the threat of December Me. She visits me when I’m stretched out under my sunshade by the pier at the beach. My kids are riding waves and I am polishing off my third novel of the month. She’s out of place there, wrapped in an apron and wool, with a chef’s knife in hand. She’s pushy, and she demands I plant carrots for her soup pot.

“Fine,” I acquiesce. “I’ll do it tomorrow. But a little appreciation for this tan wouldn’t go amiss.”

It took me forty years to learn to be at ease. February Me with her frantic urge to run and December Me with her determination to keep our family warm and fed are good women, too. But August Me, I only met her as my hair started to silver. She’s unbothered in a way my younger self couldn’t fathom. She’s married to pleasure, and she never wears shoes and in my twenties I was far too obligated in the unseen places to let her live. No, my thirties folded into her the way my garden takes the whole jackpot. Triumphantly. Unapologetically. This woman has learned to sweep the table as if she earned it. To walk away once she knows she’s well and won.

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Post Scriptum

This essay is a lot shorter than I usually run, but I guess that’s August for you. Back-to-school season is in high gear. I’ve heard pumpkin spice mentioned three times this week. Seems like everyone is sprinting to fall, but I’m planting my flag here in the heat. Might as well, as I can’t chase it off by trying. So if you need me, I’ll be exactly where I said, stretched out by some body of water, avoiding work, reading, knitting with cotton and probably eating something cold.

I hope you’re giving yourself grace, too. Maybe by August it’s mercy. Either way, enjoy a popsicle with me, would ya?

Cucumber Mojito Popsicles
1 large cucumber, peeled (about 2 cups)
Juice of 1 lime (about 2 tbsp)
1 tsp lime zest
2 tbsp honey
8–10 mint leaves
¼ cup coconut water

Blend all the ingredients in a food processor until pretty smooth.
Fills size 3 oz. popsicle molds.
Freeze until solid.
Enjoy while wearing a swimsuit.

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